Check your (Internet) privilege

...the reason you haven't seen a post in weeks.

A few years back, I pulled into the invisible outskirts of Port Arthur, TX on a coal-carrying bulk ship called MV Mary Ann Hudson. The ship was 35 years young, and needless to say, had no internet connection. I had my first IPhone with me, but it wouldn't turn on. I asked fellow crewmembers for advice, but none had fancy high tech phones like mine. I took the phone to the local Verizon store, and they showed me the answer- I just had to hold the power buttons longer. Apple doesn't put out print user's manuals- they assume their customers have internet privilege.

Two years later, I was at a Capitol Hill brief with the USMMA's Board of Visitors. One topic was how to save the humanities curriculum. One member of Congress asked if students could do digital courses at sea. Rep. Grimm from Staten Island had the best expression when he learned that Internet service at sea is unpredictable, but largely non-existent.

Today, many businesses have "improved" their websites with data- heavy features like pictures and automatic reload. Too much for a simple satellite connection to handle. As they attempt to get more business, they get less of mine. Simple is better in my world.

We've gotten to the point where Internet has become a necessity. To complete the backside things professionals needto do on their own time, like license updates, requires Internet and a printer. I finally figured out how to get what I need some- go to a hip new place known as a shared workspace.

Creative and Creating Classes Working Together

“On August 18, for the first time since 1999, the three stock market indices set record highs on the same day. If your retirement account is growing, elect Hillary to continue Obama’s legacy”

“For many people, America has never been better”, says Hillary Clinton. Society has never been more racially integrated. The Old Boy’s Club is losing power. More women than ever are in traditionally-male professions and occupations. Inner cities have never been cleaner or more prosperous. For those left out, it’s because you turned your back on higher education. It’s not Darwinism! Cheering on big business is a winner with the New Yorker-reading set (last check, the cover price is $8.99. Hardly radical). For fair-weather liberals seeking social approval with click-bait, big companies’ public relation moves on social issues is true progress. The nefarious element of overseas sweatshops and domestic stagnant wages, a centuries-old mainstay of big business, has fallen off the public consciousness. In any case, they’re making progress on social issues, so it’s okay. And what happened to the “Shop Local” campaign? Well, there are a few bigoted photographers and bakers out there who claim first-amendment protection for their bigotry. Better not risk supporting one.

   

“On August 18, for the first time since 1999, the three stock market indices set record highs on the same day. If your retirement account is growing, elect Hillary to continue Obama’s legacy”.

What difference does it make? My country is being humiliated overseas, and my income is declining. “Make America great again”. Restoring working-class prosperity is Donald Trump’s announced intention; Bernie Sanders hinted at this as well when he called for in-sourcing jobs from overseas. Trump’s America is a dark world of shortening life expectancy and increasing suicides. The working-class man, driven out to exurban and rural ghettos, is ashamed that he cannot provide for his family without community assistance. Bernie’s America is college educated and well-versed in the language of multiculturalism. They live at home, or receive parental subsistence for rent. There may be a faded Obama poster in the bedroom. They’re in dead-end jobs not related to their college major or career of choice. They’re living the nightmare of soul-crushing jobs the Port Huron Accords predicted half a century ago.  They wonder when they can move on into the post-collegiate life they’ve seen on TV; the lifestyle their teachers promised. 

Big business seems to be a force for social justice; and drive profits as scientifically-driven organizations with streamlined procedures and efficient logistics. But I don’t like the idea of treating people like numbers on a spreadsheet. I’m uncomfortable with companies that protect the bottom-line by using their staff as an on-call labor force with unpredictable schedules. I’m suspect of the intelligence of companies disposing their most senior employees, who happen to be the greatest repositories of knowledge, because they’re paid “too much”. They’ve scorched too much earth. In the last recession, forward-thinking employees who were laid off decided to go it alone- or work it out together. After the parent company of the Washington Blade paper collapsed, one employee reported in a news article, along the lines that “we were only unemployed a few hours that day, from the time we got the news until we realized that we’d continue the paper ourselves”.  Others adapted to the new economy by embracing the You Economy. 

Nearing retirement, one of my professors said that the Future of Work, the You Economy, is a big deal. He sent us an article by email and asked us about it in class.  The topic passed over our heads as we were headed into a domestic maritime industry of strong unions, protected trade, and significant regulatory barriers to entry for both labor and owners. Many would also get good union-sponsored pensions and health benefits strong enough that Richard Trumka, leader of the AFL-CIO, came out against the “Cadillac” Health Plan tax. “Sail Union, get married, retire at 50” appeared more than once in USMMA yearbooks- a middle-class dream right there.  

But what if the You Economy could resurrect the middle class? Entrepreneurs are building from the scrap heap of big business; use their techniques, such as outsourcing tasks to contractors, on a smaller scale to create new products and services. Just-in-time production allows innovators to order prototypes, using their own modest bank accounts as seed money without calling on angel investors. With hipster intrigue into the Maker movement, more leaders than ever are discovering the capabilities of American craftsmanship and manufacturing; knowledge and technical talent working tirelessly in nondescript companies with names like Ball Bearing and Rubber Products. The multigenerational creative class would likely not know that people other than gardeners and elevator mechanics still work with their hands. A few colleges, though, are known for their interface with industry. Stanford University, for example, is the brain of Silicon Valley. It caters to the tech industry, which is hip; and is nearby San Francisco, which is totally hip. I knew someone who won a Gates Scholarship and chose to attend Stanford instead of Harvard. But isn’t Harvard better ranked? Lehigh and Harvey Mudd, longtime interfaces of industrial-collegiate collaboration, aren’t located in the hippest cities; steel and oil are so old-school.  Ideas are created on paper- hence, creative class, and rendered into products by machinists, technicians, and operators utilizing workshops and factories in as much as the tech sector has coders. The same talent that creates the products can engineer their processes based on a living wage for workers. “For many people, America has never been better” for the creative class, those who’ve mastered the You Economy. “Make America great again” for the working class is an achievable goal.

The Airplane Engines that Drive Ships

Recently, I flew from Virginia to Houston and, one week later, to Charleston, SC, on a plane known as the Embraer 145. It's a thin tube that seats up to 47 that's good for short flights. These days, United Airlines fly them halfway across the country. My first flight had me in the back row, next to the jet engines and lavatory. I had time to observe and listen to the engines. I knew the next ship I would be boarding had engines like these. When I found out my next flight's seat assignment, I went for Economy Plus. As on a ship, those turbines are best enjoyed 75 feet from, and cumulative inches of aluminum or steel away.

Boarding my next ship was the reason I came to Charleston. When I landed at the bustling small airport on a Saturday, I noticed I was the only flyer in work attire instead of golfing clothes. I did get to see the sights, and got there by city bus. The stop was marked with an old concrete post in a gritty industrial district where the ship was docked. As the bus rolled towards downtown, old factories were used by artisans and mainstream producers. Many call the barebone bus systems of medium-sized cities "transportation of last resort", but its timeliness to the schedule was impressive and made it worth riding.

The ship I'm on, from a class known as the second generation of "AOEs", have hulls of the old liner ships that traversed the oceans in the days before jet planes. Built at the end of the Cold War, I am sure that some of the designers of the AOEs had experience in those majestic passenger ships built in the 1940's and 1950's.  Those passenger ships sailed with steam turbines, a technology that today is used by most conventional and nuclear power plants.

The jet age brought us aeroderivative gas turbines, in use by all fine navies and some high speed ocean ferries. After 1980, steam turbines gave way to diesel engines for most ships, and gas turbines on higher-speed ships such as Cunard's ocean liners. With the AOE's being constructed during the fall of the Soviet Union, the 1990's Navy soon bought a class of even larger logistics ships designed to be crewed by civilians, also propelled by gas turbines. Then computers got smarter; replacing a robust, but expensive part of steam- and gas- turbine ships known as the reduction gear. With power management software, multiple efficient diesel generators could provide electricity to turn a large electric motor attached to the ship's propeller. Enough kilowatts provided the energy needed to propel the ships at high speeds. The AOEs and their cousins known as the AKRs (which I sailed on at the USMMA) mark a certain time frame in history where speed was bought at the cost of fuel efficiency.

Vibrant City; Charity Care

The Vibrant City

Friday evening, inbound on the Lincoln Tunnel is jammed with people headed to Midtown and the theater district. I’m starting to see this in DC, whose waterfront and restaurants are alive until 11pm on weekday nights.  The city is coming of age for what used to be a “quaint southern city”.

Enough old architecture remains bearing the marks of gentrification, bricks cleaned and painted jolly colors, new window frames, grout renewed. DC also embarked on a subway maintenance blitz; New York City has done this before, although alternate routings and express tracks have mitigates the effects on commuters. DC could certainly do better with alternate bus service, but this is where private industry is stepping in. Uber and Lyft, once demonized by establishment politicians, earned their right to exist as subway service is ending earlier on weekends. Bridj is operating red-and-white private buses that take those “in-the-know” to work- those with smartphone and credit card required. I have not seen “Google”-style buses yet, but I am not ruling out the possibility as the city proper becomes a hipper place than ever.

Charity Care: Alternative to Medicaid Expansion?

In the 1970’s, each state was required to establish central planning of healthcare, including “certificate of need”, removing the essential services of healthcare from the free market and traditional notions of supply-and-demand. It was argued that the process stifled innovation and competition, and the law was repealed in 1986, and over time, 14 states have abolished the system, and others have reduced the scope of central planning. New York was the first, in 1964, as Ronald Reagan and the American Medical Association railed against socialized medicine and Nixon’s individual mandate proposal. Next year is Virginia’s turn. A result of short legislative sessions, a bill passed by the legislature related to the issue was held over for next year. This was a result of strong bipartisan effort in suburban parts of the state. Balancing free-market ideals with the practical reality of health care access for rural residents. Imaging services like MRI and CAT will likely be the first to be liberated. This would be a boon for health care investors, and the Democratic governor, always looking to turn a buck, has shown support. It would also benefit the urban and suburban poor, who would be able to receive charity care on new healthcare investments, more than ever decentralized from large, regional hospitals. The cost of increased healthcare access would be assumed by private investors, rather than taxpayers under Medicaid. Two questions remain: How will this charity care be coordinated? How will rural access to healthcare be protected?

A New Subway in Manhattan

This year a new subway station opened up on the Hudson River in a newly vibrant west of midtown, formerly home to warehouses and meatpacking outfits. The station was built in the bedrock, and escalators connected from the street to the vaulted station a hundred feet below. One short flight of stairs connected the escalator mezzanine to the platform, a Spartan finish for a city that’s still kind of utilitarian. Soon, as in next year, a new line will serve Second Avenue on the notorious Upper East Side, and the Hudson River station is the builder’s model for sleekness in a subway system known for its grit.  Distinctly to the east of Lexington and Fifth Avenues, and retaining a village-like feel, I knew friends-of-friends who were able to afford apartments in the walk-ups that line the side-streets of Second Avenue. In a place where convenience comes with a price, I’d like to see if Second Avenue can keep its quaint, off-the-path charm.  

Protectionism and HB-1 Visas

Donald Trump has rankled Silicon Valley talked about closing our borders to foreign talent. Does labor protectionism work?

It does for oceangoing ship's officers, job descriptions which requires  a license. The barriers to entry are set fairly high. Getting the basic license for oceangoing ships (Third Mate or Third Engineer) requires six years of work experience in entry level and semi-skilled shipboard jobs; four to six years in shipboard Navy service; an engineering degree; or four years of maritime college. Interestingly, I have not met an American engineer who has gotten a license from a non-maritime college.

In addition to the USMMA, six state maritime colleges make it their bread and butter to educate and train future ship's officers. To respond to changing times, these state colleges have expanded their scope of degrees to include related fields like marine biology and operations engineering. Each of these has a required regimental system, a requirement for federal funding. The rigidity of the regimental systems vary by college; for example, all require uniforms for class, but others add more intensity: The Maritime College of New York, for example, hired an administrator who had experience at both Guantanamo Bay and a federal prison in South Carolina. This lead to an online discussion on GCaptain about the reasons behind and merits of the regimental systems for students not in ROTC. Summed up as follows:

Why do they still have the regiment?
      Ship's officers need discipline when handling lives and millions of dollars of cargo.
The airline industry doesn't do it.
       You're at sea for weeks at a time.
Field engineers and wildcats don't do it either.
        OK....it helps weed people out and thus protects my income.

Officers of American ships, government or private, are required to be US citizens. With these requirements; and with demand created by the Jones Act, our maritime cabotage law similar to those for airlines and trucking; wages tend to be higher than on foreign ships. And American shipping companies were able to dominate the world market after World War Two... at least during the time they were able to acquire the best government surplus vessels. Today, American overseas commercial shipping is a shadow of its former self. Yet for decades, hardworking Americans have been able to benefit from "protectionist" policies.

Coming back to land, it has been argued that the HB-1 Visa program holds down wages of engineers and other technical staffers; who must go into management or entrepreneurship to get ahead. But alongside the well-educated worker-bees (In Korea, I met a man whose son was waiting for an HB-1 Visa) are the potential job creators of the future, who can't afford an EB-5 Investor's Visa. In shipping, the jobs protected are at the operational level. Strategy and ideas are implemented in the office and at the executive level. It would be difficult to work in the global economy while functioning in an isolationist vacuum, but as the experience in the American maritime industry shows, "protectionist" policies can protect middle-class jobs.  

Homeward Bound

When May rolled around, I had been on the ship for 8 months and there was a lot of inside knowledge to turn over to my replacement, and very little time. Like an essay, though, it was completed in time. On the top of my concerns was the weather. My ship was anchored an hour out of Chinhae, Korea, and on my last workday I had been delayed half a day while conducting ship's business ashore. As I was closing out affairs with the ship's master, I asked if I should leave before morning, forgoing a good night sleep, because of the waves. He assured me that the weather would be alright. Which it was.

I had a last hurrah on Texas Street in Pusan, and visited Haeundae Beach (seeing is believing). It was Cinco de Mayo, and my original itinerary would've landed me in Norfolk before closing time the same day, 37 hours after midnight in Korea, due to the international date line. Instead, I flew on May 6th, and my first flight sent me to Tokyo. I had enough time to clear customs and go to the town of Narita for lunch. The next flight was 11 hours to Detroit. Many people bemoan long flights, but I didn't mind having the time to myself, and only to myself. In the air, I watched several movies, including "Brooklyn", "The Finest Hours", and a documentary of gentrification in San Francisco. I was curious about this pulsing change that is radiating from San Francisco. It's tech, but it's more than just tech.

Although I flew out of the US to meet ships, once to Israel and twice to Korea, I also haven't entered the US by airplane since 2007. I wondered what the experience would be. Detroit airport, in flyover country, is now an international airline hub for Delta Airlines. I suppose that it was decided by big data. Was Customs and Border Protection on top of their game?  Four widebody flights had arrived in one hour, and contributed to some customs delays in the otherwise well-designed and partially automated international arrival area. 
Slipping easily across borders today, enabled in the name of free trade, reminded me of the time between the gilded age of railroads and the outbreak of World War One, those with means to travel in Europe did so easily and without passports.

My flight from Detroit to Norfolk was delayed for a technical issue. I was surprised, because I always had my engine plant ready ten minutes before departure. Never a minute late. Then again it was me and twenty others to assist in the engineering department, versus a cockpit crew of two. I slept little on the long flight, but wasn't in bad shape, though. I got home at 10pm local time, and woke up for lunch. No jet lag, really.

Back to the Cities?

Even though I’ve spent the past year outside of the US, I’d like to catch up on the latest trend: businesses, and people, are moving back to the cities? I’ve heard from urban pioneers of yesteryear, now middle-class homeowners in the swankiest neighborhoods, talk about how their neighborhood “changed for the better”. It’s not a new trend, but one that entered hyperdrive since 2010- or the official end of the last recession. Places like Detroit and Cleveland are on the upswing. Manhattan is back, more than ever. In Washington, DC, gentrification has been completed in the L’Enfant City of stately apartment buildings, Victorian townhomes, and sleek new construction. Prices continue to climb; so where should urban pioneers head next, if not Baltimore?

I’ll ask, why did people move to the cities?

Because of Television

Shows like Entourage and Mad Men glorify the after-work happy hour. Driving to, but mostly from, happy hour with pals from your asphalt-surrounded office park is not a feasible idea. Ditto a decent lunch break. Long waits to take a left turn into the strip mall make the brown bag an appealing option.

Because of the Internet

Facebook says, shouts, and screams that you have to be there in the middle of the action. If college today is about the amenities purchased with tax-advantaged student loans, yuppie life is about prolonging adolescence. Whether you’re a SINK or a DINK, you can’t be more than walking distance from the hot spots.

Why did businesses move to the cities?

Cities wised up about tax policy

Without big-box stores, Washington, DC lost $1 billion per year in tax revenue as residents shopped in neighboring suburbs. Since then, Target and Walmart have opened in the city. Also, state laws limit scope of local regulations: A business can open in inner-city Norfolk or Richmond  with little more red tape than in business-friendly suburbs.

Maximize workforce within commuting distance

Mature workers may be tied down to houses in different parts of the region. Locating in the heart of the city averages out commuting distances, and makes a shorter commute for those choosy, urban-dwelling Millennials. Also, with traffic so bad, mass transit reduces commute times, as long as offices and businesses are located near transportation hubs, often the center city.

Hip and Energetic

We’ve seen companies trying to be “with the times”, occasionally embarrassing themselves in the process. Downtown offices have the same hoped effect: to give a new, friendlier image to the same old corporation. Big Data says it’s the right move to take…what could go wrong?

So where should urban pioneers head next?

How about Crystal City, a stone’s throw from the Pentagon, once the workplace of legions of military personnel and their contractors, the epitome of square culture. Hard times hit the community of 1970’s office towers and large condos with the end of the Cold War, and the subsequent Defense Department’s BRAC initiative that picked up speed after homeland security concerns came to the forefront. (These buildings replaced the wartime “temporary buildings” placed on the National Mall) It was a paradox, because as the offices were emptying out in this “bland” area 10 minutes by car, subway, or commuter train from Downtown Washington, the “authentic” U Street corridor benefited from gentrification that began with the arrival of a new subway station.

What’s wrong with Crystal City? It just wasn’t hip; street life was non-existent as commuters, residents, and hotel guests arrived by car; or by the subway, through a maze of connected basements. Polyester-blend khaki uniforms don’t take sweat-stains well, and the tunnels were a brilliant idea to keep workers of the future away from Washington’s summer heat. Recent renovations have widened sidewalks and opened more ground-level retail. I’ve seen sidewalk cafes bustling at lunchtime as today’s workers ditch the brown bag.

Washington, DC had to develop a start-up culture. Although now home to a wide range of industries outside of government, including Fortune-listed companies offering technology applications, aerospace, and hospitality; even Volkswagen; these companies were transplants like many of the area’s residents. Notable exceptions are Marriott, AOL and Capital One. Young educated born-and-raised locals, a growing demographic, had to realize that government was not the only means to a successful career in Washington.  With the necessary entrepreneurial infrastructure in place, the start-up environment was hatched. 

Then you had to teach the real estate magnates about changing times. Kings of concrete, they were used to renting out entire floors to well-paying clients like the US Government, the US Air Force, and various contractors. Today, they are becoming more accepting of smaller square-foot leases and shorter terms, required by small, fledgling, and nimble companies.  They’ve even torn down some arsenals of cubicles in Crystal City.

Part of the attraction of cities is the cool buildings and a sense of place: I’ve been to Portland, Oregon. Old loft warehouses are inspiring, especially when relics of the past are still visible. Do 1970’s office buildings, such as those surrounding the Pentagon, have to be forever branded as sterile and impersonal? One building owner remodeled one floor in the image of Silicon Valley. For other offices, I envision posting images of the quantifiable work performed and vintage encounters: satellites, mustached military officers, and secretaries with typewriters. Heck, paint the elevators camouflage green.

Could Crystal City, and its sisters across America, be the next up-and coming neighborhoods?